Russia’s Remarkable Renaissance

Something remarkable is taking place in Russia, and it’s quite different from what we might expect. Rather than feel humiliated and depressed Russia is undergoing what I would call a kind of renaissance, a rebirth as a nation. This despite or in fact because the West, led by the so-called neo-conservatives in Washington, is trying everything including war on her doorstep in Ukraine, to collapse the Russian economy, humiliate Putin and paint Russians generally as bad. In the process, Russia is discovering positive attributes about her culture, her people, her land that had long been forgotten or suppressed.

My first of many visits to Russia was more than twenty years ago, in May, 1994. I was invited by a Moscow economics think-tank to deliver critical remarks about the IMF. My impressions then were of a once-great people who were being humiliated to the last ounce of their life energy. Mafia gangsters sped along the wide boulevards of Moscow in sparkling new Mercedes 600 limousines with dark windows and without license plates. Lawlessness was the order of the day, from the US-backed Yeltsin Kremlin to the streets. “Harvard boys” like Jeffrey Sachs or Sweden’s Anders Aaslund or George Soros were swarming over the city figuring new ways to rape and pillage Russia under the logo “shock therapy” and “market-oriented reform” another word for “give us your crown jewels.”

The human toll of that trauma of the total collapse of life in Russia after November 1989 was staggering. I could see it in the eyes of everyday Russians on the streets of Moscow, taxi-drivers, mothers shopping, normal Russians.

Today, some two decades later, Russia is again confronted by a western enemy, NATO, that seeks to not just humiliate her, but to actually destroy her as a functioning state because Russia is uniquely able to throw a giant monkey wrench into plans of those western elites behind the wars in Ukraine, in Syria, Libya, Iraq and well beyond to Afghanistan, Africa and South America.

Rather than depression, in my recent visits to Russia in the past year as well as in numerous discussions with a variety of Russian acquaintances, I sense a new feeling of pride, of determination, a kind of rebirth of something long buried.

Sanctions Boomerang

Take the sanctions war that the Obama administration has forced Germany, France and other unwilling EU states to join. The US Treasury financial warfare unit has targeted the Ruble. The morally corrupt and Washington-influenced Wall Street credit rating agencies have downgraded Russian state debt to “junk” status. The Saudis, in cahoots with Washington, have caused a free-fall in oil prices. The chaos in Ukraine and EU sabotage of the Russian South Stream gas pipeline to the EU, all this should have brought a terrified Russia to her knees. It hasn’t.

As we have earlier detailed, Putin and an increasing number of influential Russian industrialists, some of the same who a few years ago would have fled to their posh London townhouses, have decided to stand and fight for the future of Russia as a sovereign state. Oops! That wasn’t supposed to happen in a world of globalization, of dissolution of the nation-state. National pride was supposed to be a relic like gold. Not in Russia today.

On the first anniversary of the blatant US coup in Kiev that installed a hand-picked regime of self-professed Neonazis, criminals, and an alleged Scientologist Prime Minister Andriy Yansenyuk, hand-picked by the US State Department, there was a demonstration in downtown Moscow on February 22. An estimated 35,000 to 50,000 people showed up—students, teachers, pensioners, even pro-Kremlin bikers. They protested not against Putin for causing the economic sanctions by his intransigence against Washington and EU demands. They protested the blatant US and EU intervention into Ukraine. They called the protest “Anti-Maidan.” It was organized by one of many spontaneous citizen reactions to the atrocities they see on their borders. Internet satirical political blogs are making fun of the ridiculous Jan Paski, until last week the fumbling US State Department Press Spokesperson.

Not even an evident False Flag attempt in the London Financial Times and Western controlled media to blame Putin for “creating the climate of paranoia that caused” Boris Nemtsov’s murder is being taken seriously. Western “tricks” don’t work in today’s Russia.

And look at US and EU sanctions. Rather than weakening Putin’s popularity, sanctions have caused previously apolitical ordinary Russians to rally around the president, who still enjoys popularity ratings over 80%. A recent survey by the independent Levada Center found 81 percent of Russians feel negatively about the United States, the highest figure since the early 1990s “shock therapy” Yeltsin era. And 71 percent feel negatively about the European Union.

The renaissance I detect is evident in more than protests or polls, however. The US-instigated war in Ukraine since March 2014 has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, one which the US-steered German and other western media have blocked out of their coverage. More than one million Ukrainian citizens, losing their homes or in fear of being destroyed in the insane US-instigated carnage that is sweeping across Ukraine, have sought asylum in Russia. They have been welcomed as brothers according to all reports. That is a human response that has untold resonances among ordinary Russians. Because of the wonders of YouTube and smart phone videos, Russians are fully aware of the truth of the US war in eastern Ukraine. Russians are becoming politically sensitive for the first time in years as they realize that some circles in the West simply want to destroy them because they resist becoming a vassal of a Washington gone berserk.

Rather than bow to the US Treasury’s Ruble currency war and the threat that Russian banks will be frozen out of the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) international interbank clearing system, something likened to an act of war, on February 16, the Russian government announced that it had completed its own banking clearing network in which some 91 domestic credit institutions have been incorporated. The system allows Russian banks to communicate seamlessly through the Central Bank of Russia.

That is inside Russia among banks that otherwise were vulnerable even domestically to a SWIFT cut. Russia joined the Brussels-based private SWIFT system as the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1989. Today her banks are the second largest users of SWIFT. The new system is inside Russia. Necessary, but not sufficient, to protect against SWIFT cutoff. The next step in discussion is joint Russia-China interbank clearing independent of SWIFT and Washington. That is also coming.

The following day after Russia’s “SWIFT” alternative was announced as operational, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping said China will build up its strategic partnership with Russia in finance, space and aircraft building and “raise trade cooperation to a new level.” He added that China plans to cooperate more with Russia in the financial area and in January Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said that payments in national currencies, de-dollarization, were being negotiated with China. China realizes that if Russia collapses, China is next. Failing empires try desperate measures to survive.

Russians also realize that their leaders are moving in unprecedented ways to build an alternative to what they see as a morally decadent and bankrupt American world. For most Russians the disastrous decade of poverty, chaos and deprivation of the Yeltsin era in the 1990’s was reminder enough what awaits should Russia’s leaders again prostitute themselves to American banks and corporations for takeover, Hillary Clinton’s infamous “reset” of US-Russian relations she attempted when Medvedev was President. Russians see what the US has done in neighboring Ukraine where even the Finance Minister, Natalia Jaresko, is an American, a former State Department person.

Russia and its leaders are hardly trembling behind Kremlin walls. They are forging the skeleton of a new international economic order that has the potential to transform the world from the present bankruptcy of the Dollar System. Moscow and Beijing recently announced, as I discussed in a previous posting, their project to create a joint alternative to the US credit rating monopoly of Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. President Putin’s travel agenda in the past year has been mind-boggling. Far from being the international paraiah Washington and Victoria Nuland hoped for, Russia is emerging as the land which has the courage to “just say No!” to Washington.

Russia’s president has been in Cyprus where possible basing for the Russian navy was discussed, in Egypt where General al-Sisi warmly welcomed the Russian leader and discussed significant economic and other joint cooperation. Late last year Russia and the BRICS states agreed to form a $100 billion infrastructure bank that makes the US-controlled World Bank irrelevant. The list grows virtually every day.

The special human side

For me, however, the most heartening feature of this Russian renaissance is in the generation which is today in their late thirties to early forties—young, highly intelligent and having experience of both the depravity of Soviet communist bureaucracy but as well of the hollow world of US-led so-called “free market capitalism.” I share some examples from the many Russians I have come to know in recent years.

What is unique in my mind about this generation is that they are the hybrid generation. The education they received in the schools and universities was still largely dominated by the classical Russian science. That classical Russian science, as I have verified from many discussion with Russian scientist friends over the years, was of a quality almost unknown in the pragmatic West. An American Physics professor from MIT who taught in Moscow universities in the early 1990s told me, “When a Russian science student enters first year university, he or she already has behind them 4 years of biology, 4 of chemistry, of physics, both integral and differential calculus, geometry…they are starting university study at a level comparable to an American post-doctoral student.”

They grew up in a Russia where it was common for young girls to learn classical ballet or dance, for all children to learn to play piano or learn a musical instrument, to do sports, to paint, as in classical Greek education of the time of Socrates or Germany in the 1800s. Those basics which were also there in American schools until the 1950s, were all but abandoned during the 1980s. American industry wanted docile “dumbed-down” workers who asked no questions.

Russian biology, Russian math, Russian physics, Russian astrophysics, Russian geophysics—all disciplines approached their subject with a quality that had long before disappeared from American science. I know, as I grew up during the late 1950’s during the “Sputnik Shock,” where we were told as high school pupils we had to work doubly hard to “catch up to the Russians.” There was a kernel of truth, but the difference was not lack of American students working hard. In those days we worked and studied pretty hard. It was the quality of Russian scientific education that was so superior.

Teaching of the sciences especially, in Russia or the Soviet Union, had been strongly influenced by the German education system of the 1800s, the so-called Humboldt Reforms of Alexander von Humboldt and others.

The strong ties in Russian education with classical 19th Century German culture and science went deep, going back to the time under Czar Alexander II who freed the serfs in 1861, following the example of his friend, Abraham Lincoln. The ties were deepened to German classical culture later under Czar Alexander II prior to the 1905 Russo-Japanese War when the brilliant Sergei Witte was Transport Minister, then Finance Minister and finally Prime Minister before western intrigues forced his resignation. Witte translated the works of the German national economist Friederich List, the brilliant opponent of England’s Adam Smith, into Russian. Before foreign and domestic intrigues manipulated the Czar into the disastrous Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907 against Germany a pact which made England’s war in 1914 possible, the Russian state recognized the German classical system as superior to British empiricism and reductionism.

Many times I have asked Russians of the 1980s generation why they came back to Russia to work after living in the USA. Always the reply more or less, “The US education was so boring, no challenge…the American students were so shallow, no idea of anything outside the United States…for all its problems, I decided to come home and help build a new Russia…”

Some personal examples illustrate what I have found: Irina went with her parents to Oregon in the early 1990s. Her father was a high-ranking military figure in the USSR. After the collapse he retired and wanted to get away from Russia, memories of wars, to live his last years peacefully in Oregon. His daughter grew up there, went to college there and ultimately realized she could be so much more herself back in Russia where today as a famous journalist covering US-instigated wars in Syria and elsewhere including Ukraine, she is making a courageous contribution to world peace.

Konstantin went to the USA to work as a young broadcast journalist, did a master’s degree in New York in film and decided to return to Russia where he is making valuable TV documentaries on dangers of GMO and other important themes. Anton stayed in Russia, went into scientific and business publishing and used his facility with IT to found his own publishing house. Dmitry who taught physics at a respected German university, returned to his home St Petersburg to become a professor and his wife also a physicist, translates and manages a Russian language internet site as well as translating into Russian several of my own books.

What all these Russian acquaintances, now in their late 30s or forties share is that they were born when the remnants of the old Soviet Russia were still very visible, for better and for worse, but grew to maturity after 1991. This generation has a sense of development, progress, of change in their lives that is now proving invaluable to shape Russia’s future. They are also, through their families and even early childhood, rooted in the old Russia, like Vladimir Putin, and realize the reality of both old and new.

Now because of the brazen open savagery of Washington policies against Russia, this generation is looking at what was valuable. They realize that the stultifying bureaucratic deadness of the Soviet Stalin heritage was deadly in the USSR years. And they realize they have a unique chance to shape a new, dynamic Russia of the 21st Century not based on the bankrupt model of the now-dying American Century of Henry Luce and FD Roosevelt.

This for me is the heart of an emerging renaissance of the spirit among Russians that gives me more than hope for the future. And, a final note, it has been policy among the so-called Gods of Money, the bankers of London and New York, since at least the assassination in 1881 of Czar Alexander II, to prevent a peaceful growing alliance between Germany and Russia. A prime aim of Victoria Nuland’s Ukraine war has been to rupture that growing Russo-German economic cooperation. A vital question for the future of Germany and of Europe will be whether Germany’s politicians continue to kneel to the throne of Obama or his successor or define their true interests in closer cooperation with the emerging Eurasian economic renaissance that is being shaped by President Putin’s Russia and by President Xi’s China.

Ironically, Washington’s and now de facto NATO’s “undeclared war” against Russia has sparked this remarkable renaissance of the Russian spirit. For the first time in many years Russians are starting to feel good about themselves and to feel they are good in a world of some very bad people. It may be the factor that saves our world from a one world dictatorship of the bankers and their military.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. This article first appeared here: Russia’s Remarkable Renaissance

The Essential Saker II: Civilizational Choices and Geopolitics / The Russian challenge to the hegemony of the AngloZionist Empire

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94 Comments

Now we need Union Pay cards throughout Western Europe and lots of tourist deals for people to visit Russia. It is a flow of ordinary people Russia needs in its hotels and museums and resorts to ensure Russia is European and open for business

Wonderful article! Wonderful site! The anti-Russian propaganda in Canada is pervasive and includes the CBC. To get a glimpse of the depravity of the current CBC, take a look – if you can stomach it – of The Fifth Estate’s “The Long Shadow of Putin”. Beyond disgusting.

Thank you, As a Canadian veteran who served overseas in Peacekeeping missions
It makes my blood boil that any Canadian government would support a bunch of Neo
Nazi thugs,It is a disgrace and dishonors every Canadian who fought to rid the world
of the Nazi scorch in World War II .

I agree 100% with you. My father enlisted early in Canada for the fight against Hitler and Nazism. I am totally disgusted with how western leaders, including our own ‘horrible Harper’, are turning black into white, lying through their teethe, and supporting Nazis in Ukraine.

Good article… however, one correction should be pointed out, namely where the author incorrectly states “Czar Alexander II who freed the serfs in 1861, following the example of his friend, Abraham Lincoln.” Since Lincoln didn’t free the slaves until 1863, it would be more correct to assert that “Lincoln followed the example of his friend, Czar Alexander II who freed the serfs two years earlier than Lincoln freed the slaves”… hopefully we may assume that as stated in the article this was simply an inadvertant error by the author, and not another brazen example of presumed ‘American exceptionalism’ based on western historical revisionism.

I think there were, actually, plans to give ex-slaves land. And some of them did get their land and managed to hang on to it. But in general this, too, was pulled away in the course and the wake o Reconstruction and the emergence of the Jim Crow South. No historian here, but I am quite sure that there there WERE such plans. I think there are a few towns in southerns states where there are farmers whose ex-slave forebears managed to hang on to these grants of land.

Lincoln did better than fight chattel slavery; he fought debt slavery. Why do you think he was assassinated and America is still dancing to the banksters’ tune today?

“We have stricken the shackles from four million human beings and brought all laborers to a common level, not so much by the elevation of the former slaves as by practically reducing the whole working population, White and Black, to a condition of serfdom. While boasting of our noble deeds, we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by our iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.”
~ Horace Greely, 1872

During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1861-1865) received unexpected support from Russia when Tsar Alexander II, said that: ‘The Union was essential to maintaining the world balance of power…’ and ‘… if France or Britain gave help to the South, Russia would consider this an act of war’.

Then Alexander II backed his words with action. In September-October 1863, he ordered the Russian Pacific Fleet to San Francisco harbour and the Russian Baltic Fleet to New York harbour. The Admirals of the Fleets were given sealed orders and told to report to President Lincoln in the event of war with Great Britain or France.

Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) Chancellor of Germany would later reveal (in 1876) that slavery was not the real reason for the American Civil War:

‘The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the US, if they remained as one block, and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world.

The voice of the Rothschild’s’ predominated. They foresaw the tremendous booty if they could substitute two feeble democracies, indebted to the financiers, to the vigorous Republic, confident and self-providing. Therefore they started their emissaries in order to exploit the question of slavery and thus dig an abyss between the two parts of the Republic.’

In other words, the Rothschild bankers planned to split America and hand it back to Britain and France. The actions of Tsar Alexander II had helped to thwart this plan.

Towards the end of the war, Rothschild agent, Jacob Henry Schiff (1847-1920) was sent to the United States. (Schiff’s later role in the destruction of Russia is well documented). Lincoln also thwarted the money lenders by refusing their exorbitant interest war-loans and instead printed his own money and government bonds to fund his war effort.

On 14 April 1865, just five days after Lincoln won the war, he was assassinated.

Also, from 1866, Alexander II faced the first of many assassination attempts! Was this mere co-incidence?

actually, Lincoln did not free the slaves in 1863. the 13th amendment abolished slavery in 1865.
Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation only ‘freed’ slaves in the confederacy. It did not free slaves in the Union and had not impact on the confederacy.

Lincoln’s reasons for freeing the slaves were just as pragmatic as Alexander’s for easing up on the serfs.

“If I could preserve the Union without freeing any slaves I would do so. If, to preserve the Union I had to free all the slaves, I would do so. If I could preserve the Union by freeing some slaves and leaving others alone I would do so”.

At the risk of appearing excessively pedantic, I would like to point out that Lincoln never freed a single slave; he didn’t have the power. Congress freed the slaves by law by adopting an amendment to the Constitution.

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, while important symbolically, had no effect legally since the proclamation only affected areas not under the American president’s control. Indeed, I believe that the states of Maryland, Kentucky, and two others–whose names escapes me, continued to allow slavery even during the Civil War.

Many Confederate slaves de facto freed themselves with their feet–they just walked off.

I breathe! I smile! I hope!….there is hope yet, for a better world. Now Putin has to just keep up building his deadly arsenals to ward off those soulless and bankrupt aggressors who are circling Russia, like a hungry lion going after a herd of deer. I in NO WAY consider Russia a helpless herd of deer.
Good peoples of the world must band together to stand against the jackals, and to lift Russia high!!!

Peter Antonsen, you have a mailing list?How to provoke an American moral educational and political Renaissance??
—by telling your mailing list to tell everybody to nag everybody with a mailing list to urge the country’s moral élite to invade the nationally detested but organisationally intact GOP, in order to replace the secretly self-castrated politiicans with patriotic men of statemanlike potential…That’s how!
If such a strategy were to be initiated it would tend to be noticed, then tend to spread like a grass fire generating an overwhelming political influence that would sweep into history the power of the secret societies—because the population is frantic.

Forget that. Don’t you know there is only ONE American political party (with two divisions) and that it is solidly in the hands of the Rothschild banking cabal. Only their prostitutes can ever even run for office, much less do anything not to the bankers’ liking if they are allowed to be called the winner. Have you ever seen a national American candidate with an IQ over about 60? Unless geared totally toward evil, that is. No one with smarts or without some “Panama” for which they can be black mailed allowed. The vote simply ain’t gonna get it in this country. Controlled totally by the big money boys and their prostitutes. Third parties? Libertarians? Gatekeepers for the big boys. Really independent parties? Try and get some media time, without which no American will vote for you. Besides, if a decent candidate somehow managed to get the most votes the money boys simply change the election results to suit their desires, as per usual. Come up with something better than political parties and elections.

I must say that William Engdahl along with Pepe Escobar are two of THE finest writers on planet Earth today!

It is truly amazing the miraculous turn-around that Russia has experienced since the arrival of this person called Putin: Why I Love President Putin!

I am not religious (spiritual has no real meaning for me as it can mean anything, from worshipping crystals to dull skulls!), but Mother Mary’s “prophecies” about Mother Russia is coming true . . . that as Mother Russia goes, so goes the world.

So, I guess there is so hope left that the human race has a chance to transcend the Absolute Evil that is embodied in the West.

The blood and terror in the streets meme from the West will never obscure the truth and nobility of the Russians. The populace is too well educated.

That is the difference will the sheeple of America. They have been dumbed down by educators and the 4th estate whores feeding them 24/7 infotainment and straight up bullish*t. The process is at least half century in the making. Sadly, each generation is more ignorant than the prior.

Don’t expect too many in the West to sit in front of this article and consume it.
It would have to be converted into a rap song and Khardashian would have to strip naked and dance to the noise for them to pay attention.

Bare asses is the message. McLuhan said it. The medium is the message. The West’s culture is buttocks, tats and piercings.

Great post Larchmonter445 – a bit naughty but very amusing and we all need a good laugh in these fraught times. Couldn’t agree with you more about the sad condition of the West in general and the dumbing down of the population. ‘Bread and circuses’ was the expression the ancient Romans had for it – now the equivalent is just enough junk food to keep them from rioting and brain numbing TV to keep them from thinking about what the 1% are up to, getting obscenely wealthy and stirring up foreign wars to feed the military-industrial empires.

would it be too much to ask for a printer friendly versions of your great articles? One can always ask. btw there is a lot of stuff on Fort Russ re the Chechens who were recently apprehended. My thinking on the whole matter is that since the anti-Putin PR in the west is so pervasive and cheaply acquired it no longer constitutes a problem to be solved.

Now that I have read this fine, fine article in its entirety, a couple of comments!

That Classical Education that William Engdahl talks about was also was responsible for Germany’s miraculous renaissance from 1934 to 1939. I have a banned (in some circumcised nations like Germany today) photo book titled “Look to Germany!” that shows the incredible, I mean really amazing, progress that the German achieved during that time period, without any oil or money to achieve such accomplishments with.

As history has a way of rhyming, Russia today is the new “Nazi Germany”. President Putin is . . .

Just to be clear. My comment was I thought the posted comment by you was itself a troll, just that comment, not that you yourself are a troll. I’ve never thought you were a troll. My comment wasn’t intended as a personal attack on you and I probably should have added a smiling wink smilie after it.

Excuse me but …
in the Internet Age interested persons know that
Putin is the most popular statesman globally outside the US/UK media world, just as Hitler in the 30’s was the most respected statesman in the world simply because he matched and stopped the mass murderous reds.
And someone tell Bot Tak I love him. He is brilliant, except that, don’t cry, the holocaust never happened.

I agree with David Chu as well. Hitler only went mad around 1940, all those drugs for flatulence and becoming addicted to meth made him loose touch with reality. he took a country that was destroyed and turned it into the most powerful country in the world. That alone must have gone to his head. Listening to crazy people around him only made things worse. We always try to understand addicts who went wrong. Not that we would support what they did. Only that they had a future before. We are also not looking at the entire picture of where Britain was goading Germany. The very same thing is happening in Russia right now. Maybe Putin realizes it. Look at the achievements made in the last 10 years by Russia, to the 10 years before that. Also look at the US where after reaching a peak in 2000, things are just crashing. They cant even come up with new ideas for movies. All the stolen ideas seem dead in the water now that incremental increases are far more expensive to come by if you have to develop it all from scratch. How can Russia develop a heavy lift rocket after 25 years of not developing any but a country that had them to place people on the moon 50 years ago have trouble developing one now even with unlimited talent and money. Same thing happened in Germany and maybe why they were destroyed. Same reason why US is in such a hurry before Russia becomes the new Germany.

NEO has to be one of the best sites I have seen. Have been following the site for a few months now,and generally has about 3 very high quality articles per day.
Worth adding to the bookmarks for daily reading alongside the Saker.

Russian Renaissance: Thank you so much for this article…I had tears in my eyes as I sent it to friends including a woman who home schools because of the abysmal US educational system including the vile social atmosphere of drugs and sexual predation. Yes, and US junk food industry is according to my 85 year old hale and hearty general practitioner going to create a generation of people whose life expectancy is much less than their parent’s.

I shivered a bit that FDR was linked to the abominable Henry Luce, but other than that it was a very good read. In this country, the US of A, a good education used to be available; I know because I had one. Now, the debt monster reaches its claws out for the youth even as they attempt to minimally qualify in two year institutions. It is terrible. And even bankruptcy is off limits for students who see their debt double in no time when they can’t afford to pay. Peons for life.

The American aristocracy is eating their children alive. That doesn’t mean the young aren’t intelligent, but they are going to have to self-educate themselves out of this horrible situation. I do believe they are trying to.

Great article,and he is right on the educational problems in the US.My kids used to tell him how they had to correct the teacher on historical subjects.One asked my son how he knew so much about world history.And he told him because his parents taught him.The problem in the West today (not just the US) is that after several generations of misinformation we are becoming like the Ukrainian youth.Raised on propaganda,half-truths,and lies.In the little study that the schools give to history,they focus on the dates,and “headlines of events”.Without filling in the “why”.Without knowing why an event happens,that it happens,loses its meaning.

And they obscure meaning by giving misleading labels … First time I went to the US I was wondering at all those books about “The Civil War” in display at the books store. Looked like an important war, yet I had never heard of such a war in North America. Then it dawned on me … They were referring to the Sezessionskrieg.

Same atomization of history and present in meaningless news and data dots on this side of the Atlantic.

Education in America, if you can call it that, has been taken out of the hands of the teacher and professor and placed into the hands of the parent and the corporation. I had a discussion with a respected professor from Butler University about his recent book which was quite good but stopped short of exposing the problems of America.. This discussion took place after Obama was elected president.

I had such great hope for America at his election and the world but nothing has changed in America with Obama. Then again imagine what things would be like with McCain and the one that could see Russia from her porch. The citizens in America are deluded into think that they are the greatest by teachers who now debate their right to be able to shoot their students. Obama has allowed the gun Lobby to hold America hostage.

I said to the good professor that if he chose to expose this hypocrisy in the American society he would be fired from his job just as professor Churchill was fired in Colorado recently for his comments about 9/11.He agreed saying that funding dictates academic freedom.

I asked the professor how he could speak about democracy in America when he did not have academic freedom to write a book that exposes the fallacy on which the society is built.? He said that since he did not have tenure he had to walk a narrow line which with tenure becomes a bit wider.

In Florida, I wrote to him. the teachers must teach capitalism and it is illegal to teach about other political ideologies. I said to him , face it sir nothing will change with Obama other than a false culture of hope when you have the likes of Biden as a VP and mentions of Holbrook, Wesley Clarke and Luger (the Balkan liars) as possible team members. Gad they are worse than McCain.

The people at the top of the establishment pyramid will always protect each other. Nothing changes among the power elite and the theft of peoples assets will continue. “They are the
biggest cynics on earth and they don’t believe most of what they tell us.” Obama and Bill Clinton will be thick as thieves and nepotism will still be the order of the day when Hillary decides to run. . Now we wait for Hillary who enjoys when world political figures are sodomized.

Soviet Union went on a massive education, science, engineering and technology, research and development, and industrialization and infrastructure drive in 1930’s, continuing on for decades. This was the real terror of Stalin, to the powers of the West, as it made the Soviet Union essentially unconquerable. The only real vulnerability, as we found out, was the rot at the top, the nomenklatura. Also, the strong drive started in the 1930’s and continuing, was in a crucial time in development of modern technologies, rocketry, aircraft, jet engines, electronics etc. And the Yeltsin years privatizations? They did not privatize all the industries, ~30% of industry (state security sensitive interests) remained under government control. This is partly why there has been the possibility of the inevitable anti-neo-liberal backlash, that we see. Were the monarchists Saker has talked about hibernating there?

Thank you for the link to that PDF! I just read the first chapter and it’s fascinating. I think I’ll print it out in half-letter size, spiral-bind it and read it at my leisure… (much cheaper than paying $35 to order from Amazon)

If I weren’t already reading this here, I’d post a link to it. It’s very good.

Over forty years ago, when I was in public school, it not only did not teach anything advanced or solid, it did much to discourage anyone from learning it, including creating so much busy work students did not have time, and penalizing students for trying to move ahead (except, I gather, for the rich who could afford good private schools). Trying to give answers at more advanced levels (such as including relativity in science tests) results in being marked wrong.

The whole thrust of the American public school system is to keep kids as dumb drones, under the thumbs of the bosses — and now the police and civil authorities as well. Public policy is to create and maintain a population of poor serfs or slaves.

How is war to be avoided? Personally,I don’t think it can be. I’ve seen years of the US’s MO in foreign interventions.And as soon as they sic the MSM onto a country and leader.That’s a sign they are preparing for war.The constant movement of military equipment into place,is another tell-tail move.I think they really believe they can fight and defeat Russia and are going for it.Unless,and until Russia plainly makes them understand the nuclear holocaust they will deliver to the US homeland if a war breaks out,they won’t stop.Russia may have it’s ways of doing things.But the US has their way as well.And I’ve seen their way all my life,and I’m seeing it again.The warning for Russia is to not let them fully prepare.Don’t be the Stalin that did little while Hitler moved into place for Barbarossa.Having the huge distances,the enemy having less modern equipment than now.And the nazis with more than one war on their hands.Allowed Russia to defeat the nazi invasion.That was then,this is now.The US has spent the last 20+ years building a vast war machine.But more importantly,convincing its military and citizens,that to remain “free” they must dominate the world.To stop “evildoers” from taking their freedoms.Anyone knowing the world,knows that’s bs.But most Americans only know what they are taught,and the MSM tells them is true.Even the many people in the US that hate the government.Would never question the belief of US exceptionalism. It has because “holy writ” among all parties (except the tiny minority of people here and a few other sites).It is as pervasive and believed,as in the past were “the white man’s burden” or “manifest destiny” ,truisms of those times.

For months we’ve heard scattered reports of,at night,military equipment being moved.Shipped into different areas.We even have some public reports of military equipment and troops moving East.Is this just the tip of the iceberg,and the rest possibly unseen.The Ukraine crisis fuels this lust for war.Though it isn’t the cause of it.The cause is the Empire’s hate and fear of any rival.But the Ukraine makes a good mask for the real causes.One more reason the junta must be ousted and the Ukraine liberated.Giving NATO 43 million more people to draw soldiers from.And hundreds of more km’s of border with Russia to attack from is a horrible idea.

As far as war being inevitable, I think you are spot on Uncle Bob. However, I believe that these NATO/US clowns are overlooking one small detail; Russia is not Iraq; Russia is not Libya, Russia is not Syria nor half a dozen other countries they have laid waste with relative impunity. One must also bear in mind that the USA and its lackeys have failed to conquer Afghanistan or subdue the various resistance movements in Iraq, despite their overwhelming military superiority. As far as NATO having more population to draw troops from, this is an empty advantage as a unified and coherent force will always destroy a ramshackle, divided multinational one. And NATO is divided. Should a conventional war start, Russia will overrun Ukraine and eastern Europe with relative ease. The forces NATO are bringing to bear on Russia’s borders will simply be too puny to prevent a full Russian onslaught.
I agree that Russia ought to invade Ukraine now and oust the Nazis of Kiev and their US/NATO backers before they have the opportunity to build up strength.
Now – when that happens, that’s when I will be truly glad that I live in Tasmania. The US loony Neocons will definitely go nuclear and a full nuclear exchange will ensue. A horrible ending for all but at least the US will know what total war means.

Haha,I’m not sure Tasmania is that safe.If Abbot continues to allow US bases in Australia.Or is dumb enough to declare war on the side of the US and UK,all bets are off for safety in Australia.But my thinking is toward preventing that war.Not just accepting it.

I think there must be plain talk put out.And red lines drawn clearly.We need to return to the days when the sides understand fully,not to cross those lines.And one foot over brings the loss of that foot.And more crossing brings the loss of arms and legs if need be.The Europeans don’t want war ,in general (outside the Baltics and Poland).

The key to all this is Ukraine.End the crisis there and the world will calm down.Russia needs to tell NATO in no uncertain terms that Ukraine is a national security red line.And their further meddling will see war.No “if,and,or but’s”,a plain message.If NATO choices war there is no way around it.Russia must pray,and then destroy the NATO forces.

But I don’t believe they will choose war.I think except for the US crazies,and their main stooges.The rest of NATO is running a buff.Hoping to win without war,by talking talk.As I’ve stated several times they gamed the break-up of Ukraine in 2009 and so knew it was quite possible.And that they would be stuck with it.What they didn’t expect was Russia’s passive reaction.That has given some of them to think they might win the whole thing if they “stay the course” with the aggressive moves and talk.Russia must,for its own safety,disabuse them of that thinking.

You may be right that war is inevitable but I think it will be an assymetrical one with many fronts though still conventional and not involving nuclear weapons. What I see is the convergence of a Russia/Iran/Syria/Egypt/Greece self supporting group against an axis consisting of NATO (US/UK/EU) & Daesh supporting countries Israel/Turkey/Lybia/Nigeria/Gulf states/Saudi Arabia. Better have a Plan B for when the shtf..

“Don’t be the Stalin that did little while Hitler moved into place for Barbarossa.”

But you are aware that Stalin had been moving into place himself, aren’t you. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Soviet Union was poised to attack Germany. Not a shadow of a doubt. The Red Army deployment was gigantic. The largest in history. They had not dug in for defensive positions. Hardware, ammunition and fuel were all laid out to support a strike against Germany. This was one of the reasons of the Red Army’s initial collapse under the German attack. Lack of defensive preparedness. The other one was that the Soviet soldier was unwilling to fight for the Soviet state. He had to be forced to fight by extreme measures.

Stalin knew about German preparations for an attack, but he had not foreseen the Red Army’s collapse. Hundreds of thousand POWs in the first weeks.

Stalin’s plan was to “liberate” the peoples of Europe from other isms and bring the Soviet ism unto them.

All this has been discussed in Russia. Most notable figure is Viktor Suvorov alias Vladimir Resun. He is a defector. But there are other writers who support his views.

This is not to say that “Hitler was right in attacking the Soviet Union”. War cannot be “right”. But the question is what options did Hitler have? This is an honest and candid question. What could he have done?

Note that I support Russia and Putin 100 %. And I understand the Russian state cannot endorse the views professed by Suvorov. Cannot, and should not. But to pretend that somehow Stalin was not an aggressive actor in this (Molotov’s trip to Germany in November 1940, Soviet demands for German submission) would be very far from the truth. Very far.

Germany had enough trouble with the ongoing war against Britain and had no need for another front. The truth is that Stalin wanted to make his move and sweep through Europe: Germany, France, Benelux, possibly more. He miscalculated. Badly.

My loyalty is to truth, even when that means unpopular things, like defending Adolf Hitler. Or, in our current climate, Vladimir Putin.

I first visited Russia around May 1994 and had the same impressions. The flight over was full of spivs hoping to cash in. I didn’t get back to Moscow again until 2010. A big change. We travelled across the country and on to Mongolia. Every city had a Bolshoi theatre and every guide we had was really proud of his/her city, without the empty boasting so common in other countries. In Russia academic and cultural achievement are highly valued. In the West we are asked to admire those of little talent other than self promotion and conspicuous consumption. We are returning in May for Victory Day – we know who to thank for freeing Europe from Nazi tyranny. They’ll probably have to do it again.

Wow, what a great read. Makes me really happy and gives hope to the world. I hope people in Ukraine read it as well, so they can stand up and help the novorussians remove the regime and throw out the foreigners. Thank you Mr. Engdahl.

Lovely article from Mr Engdahl. My feeling is it’s because Russians still have a strong sense of culture and values that drives the dark hearts of the Western elite to bring Russia down into the gutter with the rest of us. If I was younger I’d learn Russian and ‘defect’ to the East. We have been brought up on lies in the West by a propaganda machine that decides what the truth is and then convinces us of it in a most insidiously and devilishly effective manner. Now I never thought I’d ever be saying that, but it’s the truth.

Simple and very effective article. Long may the Renaissance continue :).

You know I feel I should get on a plane and visit Moscow for the 70th Victory Day celebrations. I met a lovely Russian chap the other day and he was discussing the hypocrisy of the West and the way Russia is villified in the media – so I think there are many Russians outside Russia who also feel the pride and see what is going on too.

The Russians are very well educated and it’s good to see that tradition continue – long may it reign. Sadly, you see all these Russians (and Chinese) sending their children to Britain to expensive private schools to be educated – they would actually be better off back at home. It is very money driven. The good old days of quality education in the West is getting worse and worse…..and maybe they don’t realise what they have back home. Time will hopefully change that.

Sadly, you see all these Russians (and Chinese) sending their children to Britain to expensive private schools to be educated – they would actually be better off back at home.

I would have to disagree. The willingness to learn from other countries/cultures, even (especially!) rivals and competitors, is actually one of Russia (and China’s) better traits and a true source of strength for them. They will always understand us far better than we understand them. Why? Because they’re not too proud (that is, insecure) to study us.

As far as our educational system corrupting their young people is concerned, so long as they are grounded in their own system first, there’s little danger of that happening–Engdahl mentioned the case of the young Russian lady who went to college in the US, but decided to return home because she found the American cultural environment stifling. And the ones who are weak enough to allow themselves to be corrupted by our pathetic excuse for an educational system are probably the ones Russia can live without anyway.

I believe that Germany is the key. There does seem to be a split and even Merkel is trying to distance herself from the U.S crazies plans to arm Ukraine.
Berlin must realise that Washington’s plans to isolate and destroy Russia could set Europe on fire. She cannot be immune to the fact that the U.S is quite happy to stage a war in Europe, safe in the knowledge that America is far enough away to a avoid the fallout. Merkel must know that it doesn’t end with Russia, the next target would be China. In the end Europe will have to choose, peace and prosperity with Russia or continuous war and chaos with the U.S.

According to him, he could not throw people living there under ‘steamroller of nationalists’

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin says he took the decision to reunify with Crimea because he could not throw people “under a steamroller of nationalists,” according to a documentary Way Home aired on Rossiya-1 television channel.

“It was the night from February 22 to February 23. We finished at about seven in the morning. And when we were leaving, frankly speaking, I told my colleagues (and there were four of them): ‘The situation in Ukraine has turned such a way that we are forces to begin efforts to reunify with Crimea, because we cannot leave this territory and people living there to the mercy of fate, we cannot throw them under a steamroller of nationalists,” the Russian president said in an interview with the documentary.

He said that at that point he “set certain tasks and told what and how we should do but stressed that we would do it only if we were absolutely sure that people living in Crime wanted the same.”

As for the operation to evacuate Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovich, “our radio surveillance services as a matter of fact were tracing his cars” and each time he made a telephone call spotted his location, Putin said.

Excellent article. One small point: Lincoln did not free the slaves until 1863 and only those in captured Confederate states. Most likely, the purpose was to make a British intervention to lift the Union naval blockade politically impossible. The American War Between the States has many similarities to current US foreign policy, specifically including the illegal invasion of sovereign states.

There is a book called “What Ivan Know that Johnny doesn’t” written after the Sputnik Shock, in the introduction the author writes that the superiority of Soviet science education is a given but people pretend that the US is superior in the eduction of the humanities; the book proves beyond a shadow of a doubt how mistaken that belief is.

Basically in the USSR children learned to read in the first few years much better than their US counterparts, this carry over when they read history, literature, etc. If you can read better then you’ll read more and at a higher level earlier.

Thank you for this great article. In the town where I live we have a small university where students from Russia come to study and learn English. Last year we had many this year we have few. Last night I met a young lady from Sakhalin Island who was working part time to supplement her tuition. She was very attractive and had that accent that I recognized immediately as Slavic. After chatting with her a minute I asked her where was she from. She hesitated, almost afraid to say that she was from Russia . Like always I like to use my four years of Russian language and started in Russian to ask her what part of Russia and what was she doing here in Western Canada. As soon as I spoke she opened up as if she met someone from home. She was surprised that I knew where Sakhalin was located. I said to her that Putin was my hero and she smiled saying that he was her hero as well.

I’m all for a cultural renaissance here in Canada too. We’ve shed our ties to England (other than our unseemly fascination with each new batch of Hanoverian spawn) and moved firmly into a US orbit. In literature e.g. we can hardly adopt the Brits insular stance; nor are we strong enough to embrace the “rugged American individualism of the frontier”. Apparently, we are “survivors” (although our hockey players are pretty tough). All three nations agree on one thing: non elites should accept indebted servitude for many years if they want a degree.

There’s lots of material about the Pavlovian/Skinnerite outcome based education methods that provide the Deltas and Gammas for the service industry or even the Betas who staff the think tanks and government departments. These two pdfs cover a lot of the history:

… The specious philosophy of “rugged individualism” has caused much ill to this country. It has lent itself to the companion myth of “American Exceptionalism”, because the thinking goes that with our “ruggedly individualistic” natures this country has been raised above all others and it is our destiny to enforce our hegemony. …

We humans do have a need for mythology as a means of establishing societal connectivity. At the same time though, when we allow ourselves to become blinded by the myths we live by, we lose the ability to see our world clearly enough to make logical decisions on the issues that we face. To me the scariest thing about politics in the world today is that our discussions and our debates are muddied by mythological premises to such an extent that we can’t hear other points of view, or allow ourselves to consider them. While this has been generally true throughout human history, our species has never had the power before to destroy everything and everyone. Because of that destructive ability it is imperative that we look beyond our myths to see our present world as it really is. We are on the brink of so many disasters like climate change, over-population and water shortage, that we must seek means of dealing with them. Yet due to the inhalation of various counter productive mythologies we merely talk at each other, allowing events to overwhelm us, as we remain in a state of inaction.

Avigdor Lieberman has gone on record saying that Arab citizens who are not loyal to Israel should have their heads “chopped off with an axe.”

Lieberman, also the leader of the secularist nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, is an outspoken critic of Israel’s Arab population. He made the remarks during a speech on Sunday at an election rally in the city of Herzliya, Newsweek reported.

“Those who are with us deserve everything, but those who are against us deserve to have their heads chopped off with an axe,” Lieberman said.

An Arab-Israeli audience member asked what would become of her, should his policy come to pass, to which he replied, “I have no problem with your being a citizen. I expect all Arabs, Christians and Jews to be loyal to the state, regardless of religious affiliation, and to serve in the IDF. We accept and encourage those who identify with us.”

He also said that those who wave a black flag on “Nakba Day” (Day of Catastrophe), that references the fleeing of Palestinians from their homes after the creation of Israel in 1948, should be forced to live in Palestinian territories.

“Those who raise the black flag on ‘Nakba Day’ in mourning over the establishment of Israel do not belong here, as far as I am concerned, and I am quite willing to donate them to PA chief Mahmoud Abbas,” he said. “It would be my pleasure.”

This is not the first time Lieberman has made such controversial remarks aimed at Arab-Israeli citizens. He recently vowed to introduce the death penalty for Palestinian “terrorists.” And in November, he proposed offering financial incentives to Arab-Israeli citizens who would agree to move out of Israeli territory in case of the creation of a Palestinian state.

What a charmer, that goatsod, eh?

One of the very few positive aspects of the Yeltsin quislingship was that it enthusiastically encouraged the export of a million plus of these Judeao-supremacist economic opportunists and zionazi thinking neanderthal throwbacks outside the country. While a definite bummer to those countries receiving this excrement, it definitely has helped Russia recover from the Yeltsin perversion by greatly reducing the amount of rubbish that would otherwise serve as a major source of the zionazi color revolution insurgency in Russia.

In their quest for immediate greed gratification, the zionazi/Judeao-supremacist policy geniuses out did themselves. Now their main base for their operations in Russia resides outside Russia. Smart move, goatsods. :D

“I have no problem with your being a citizen. I expect all Arabs, Christians and Jews to be loyal to the state, regardless of religious affiliation, and to serve in the IDF. We accept and encourage those who identify with us.”

Lieberman actually said that? Amazing. Is he unaware of the fact that the state of Israel itself forbids Arabs from serving in the IDF? Not that most Arabs would want to anyway… but still. Is the man that ignorant?

i only wish the Russian renaissance was so simple to organise. The generation of russians in their thirty’s and forty’s who i talk to are not prepared to even attempt to start businesses, because should they be successful they will be simply stolen from them by the corrupt bureaucracy and judiciary working hand in hand with tax authorities and the mafia.

Author should take into account one of the possible sources of the new Russian renaissance: the rodnoe movememnt and accordingly return to the land (at least on weekend) and “staying out of other people’s backayrd, stomach and panties” russian philosophy. Also, one should check quality of TV programme for clues…

This is great opportunity for Russian people, since AngoZionist Mafia coup in Kiev last year, to reshaffle they affaires and they are doing that in front of our eyes. Good for them and good for every person of good will on our beautiful planet Earth. We, the People must take responsability for our future and not allow s.o.b.’s inslave us and kill innocent people for they benefits.
The Evil Empire is doing great job to force Russia out of her letargy. Russian are the greatest nation on earth and our hope for better world for every human being who comes to this Earth.

It is a good thing that the comment box is above the comments, so we don’t have to scroll all the way down in order to leave a comment.

However, for people (especially new readers) who don’t intend to comment, it is very easy to miss the fact that there are comments below unless they scroll past the comment box, which they will often fail to do. It happened to me a couple of times already.

It occurs to me that a simple way to solve this is to put a note right below the article indicating the number of comments it has at any given time. That way new readers of the blog will know immediately that there are comments below.

Google translate
Many had knowledge and impression of what the author says, on the upper level of the Soviet education from the rest of the world. And why we were so puzzling what happened in the late 80’s and early 90’s in Russia.

I also agree that the sciences, arts and humanities in Germany during the nineteenth century were in crescendo until it is positioned at a higher level.

Conscious and fearful of this is that “the beast” has done (and continues to) their best to destabilize these two countries (soon to involve in two world wars) to prevent them from becoming true leaders of humanity and not simple predatory lobsters.

I am presently in Novosibirsk. I have been traveling to Novosibirsk since 1991 on various business ventures. This is my 37th trip and I have spent over 600 days in Russia. What you see is exactly what I see. Only one observation, the day after the coup in 1991 the majority of the communist party member got on airplanes and went to Moscow. Moscow in the 1990’s was described to me as “Spiders in a Jar,” and hardly representative of the rest of Russia. I never flew into Moscow until 1999 and the only time I was in Moscow in the 1990’s was to change trains. Moscow was just too crazy.

There are so many errors in this article it’s difficult to know where to start.
Russia makes up less than 2% of Swift transactions.
The 48 countries who are, or did operate, in Afghanistan are doing so under UN mandate. The 15 members of the Security Council voted for it including Russia.

I visited the Russian Province in 1994. Moscow was wealthy in comparison even then. Without oil, Russia would be another Ukraine. They were the same society. Look at Kazhakstan (even with oil) and Belarus or Georgia. Extremely corrupt. Russian privatization was slightly less corrupt but barely so. No Polish shock therapy.Arguably, there were reformers at the Soviet Centre. In the provinces none – thus Ukraine.

I employ people in Russia. Yes. The Russian elite education system was very good. Comparable to English grammar schools in the 1950’s. Outside the elite it is very bad. It is fact based learning. They don’t think for themselves. They wait for orders.

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